


Sympathy

by Hagar



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Background Lydia Branwell & Isabelle Lightwood, Background Magnus Bane & Isabelle Lightwood, Discussion of Alec's Issues, Gen, POV Magnus Bane, Post-Episode: s01e11 Blood Calls to Blood, Pre-Episode: s01e12 Malec, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 01:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8514055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: Set between s01e11 Blood Calls to Blood and s01e12 Malec. In which Lydia and Magnus actually act like two sensible adults who both care about Alec, and can read a situation.





	

_Lydia en route._

Magnus frowned at the text message. It was from Isabelle, and - probably - a tacit apology for having _told_ Lydia where she could find Magnus. As such, it was drastically lacking. He was about to reply to Isabelle in this spirit when his phone chimed again. This second text read: _Director hat off._

Magnus frowned. If Lydia was coming to see him in an informal capacity - with _Isabelle_ her liaison of choice, rather than - this was personal, then, and almost certainly about -

“I can feel a headache blooming,” he said to himself, sing-song, then replied to Alec’s sister: _You *do* remember you already owe me?_

To this, Isabelle replied with an entire string of texts:

_Most memorable 24hr of my life_

_Shit I’m going to delete this text_

_I don’t know if you noticed but I’m NOT the Lightwood with the common sense_

“Darling, you’re the _only_ Lightwood with a common sense,” Magnus remarked idly as he typed the same words to text back. He put the phone back down on the coffee table, next to the steaming teapot. It wasn’t so much that there were things he prefered to do the Mundane way - though that would certainly be what he’d claim, if asked - as that allowed him a few moments to gather his thoughts and reflect on them while still giving him something to _do._ The tea was black, full-bodied ceylon so fragrant with spices that the hint of almonds was guaranteed to remain hidden until the first sip.

The wards tingles, like a brush of dry, cold air against skin: a visitor uninvited, yet not hostile. “Excellent timing, Director Branwell,” Magnus exclaimed a few minutes later, as she entered through the antechamber. The brownish-red brew made a graceful arc, poured from the long nozzle into dainty cups.

“It smells fantastic. Thank you,” she said as she took the offered cup.

“Now.” Magnus turned to the nearer armchair and sat down, his back relaxed and his legs crossed in a figure-four; this was his home. “To what do I owe this honour?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

He raised his perfectly-trimmed eyebrows.

“Fine; be that way. But call me Lydia; I’m not here as the Institute’s Director.” As she spoke, she walked towards the other armchair, having apparently decided that she may as well be invited to sit - or else, that it didn’t matter whether or not she was invited. “I’m here as…” She took a deep breath, exhaled, then - her nerves still in need of steadying, it seemed - finally sipped from the tea. Magnus watched her reaction intently. She blinked, once, then her mouth stretched in a weak smile as her expression relaxed. “You’re alike in the oddest things.”

The warm, amused affection in her face and voice seemed genuine; that hurt the most.

Lydia put the cup aside and leaned forward. “Let’s put this out in the open. You and Alec are in love with each other.”

“And yet he’s engaged to marry you.”

“You’re angry. I understand that -”

“Do you? My feelings don’t require your validation.”

“You’re right,” she said, quickly - too quickly for Magnus’ taste. She spoke again before he could comment, her voice softer than it’s just been. “But I think Alec needs yours.”

That was a tact Magnus didn’t expect. “I beg your pardon?”

“He’s _young_ , Magnus. I know we’re all horribly young, to you, but - do you remember being this young? Back when - when having never had anyone steal your breath was just the last week?” Her cool expression melted like snow in spring, her face suddenly animated and her hands vividly gesturing. Then her shoulders crumpled. “It’s only been a few years for me, but - it already feels like another lifetime.”

Did he, _could_ he remember? It was difficult enough to remember what it’d felt like when the thought of _love_ didn’t make his shoulders rise and rigidly clench; to remember what it’s been like, before? That was a tall order. _Or maybe,_ Magnus thought after a few quiet moments, _not so tall after all._

“For over a century, I was resolute to never love like that again. The first time was less painful, as I recall.” He tried to keep his voice soft, too; it worked well enough, though he couldn’t help his diction, which came out so precise it nearly set his own teeth on edge.

“Isabelle says you’re the first person he ever opened up to.”

He drank the words like a parched man would take to water; but they only underscored how this _wasn’t enough._ He leaned back in the armchair. “Not even his parabatai? With whom, I should mention,” he added, as she was trying to make this about the confusion of _first love_ , “Alec was seemingly in love until - what was it? _Last week._ ”

Amusement, alarm, and exasperation chased each other across Lydia’s face as he spoke, then settled into something tired and thoughtful that wasn’t so easy to name, or even read. She sighed deeply. “That certainly explains.”

 _Why_ did he tell her that? Yes, Henry’s granddaughter was likeable and had demonstrated moral fiber in that farce of a court, but the Shadowhunter taboo on romance between parabatai was nearly as deep as the revulsion most human societies had for sibling incest; it was the sort of depravity of which tragedies were made. Even loving a half-demon warlock was better. It was one thing for Alec’s sister and parabatai, and Jocelyn’s Mundane-raised daughter, to know that; but Magnus has taken a tremendous risk on Alec’s account by telling Lydia.

But she only seemed sad. “It takes a lot of love, to be this angry with someone.”

“It also takes a fair bit of love to feel someone’s pain this deeply, too.”

Her mouth curved in another wane - if honest - smile. “Alec and I want many of the same things.”

“You also _don’t_ want the same things.”

She shook her head. “The love of my life is dead. I don’t think I can love like that again.”

He didn’t have it in him, to be angry with her. She didn’t deserve it; moreover, the more time Magnus spent being angry - at anything, or anyone - and the more passionate his anger got, the less Magnus _wanted_ to be angry.

He leaned towards the small table between them, summoned a plate of caramel and truffles with a flick of his finger, popped one in his mouth and settled back, all in one fluid motion. “That certainly explains,” he said, deliberately echoing her words.

She huffed with amusement as she helped herself to the sweets. “But it doesn’t explain Alec?”

“It’d be easier if I didn’t like you, Lydia.”

“I prefer that I like you. But - would you get angry again, if I said I understand why you’re upset?”

“It seems that I don’t.”

“If you love him, then let him do this?."

“Why?”

“Because he needs more time. Because he’s built himself on what he has with Jace, and now no-one who knew Valentine can look at Jace without seeing _him._ Because proposing to me is something he did for _himself_ ; Maryse and Robert were _livid_ when they found out, and I don’t think they calmed down yet.”

“And because I have the time. To put that out in the open,” Magnus said acerbically.

Lydia wasn’t affected. “You already waited a century,” she said. “Love can come like lightning but it doesn’t fade anywhere near that easy. Give him a few years.”

“And then all the respectable reasons about careers and families will no longer be true?”

“They just might not be,” she said seriously, a statement he did not expect. “We’re entering a war, Magnus. Valentine didn’t come from the back alleys of Shadowhunter society, he came from the heart of the Clave. Our society is about to change. It has to.”

“If y- if _we_ are to win.”

 _If both Alec and I will survive,_ he meant. Lydia must’ve understood, because she sighed as she leaned forward and put her face between her hands. “I won’t argue with that.”

 _Won’t_ , Magnus noted, rather than _can’t_ ; not an impasse, but a choice. They were well-matched, Alec and her; in another life they could’ve been formidable, and in this life, too, Alec’s chosen well - if one accepted the premise that he had to be wed in this manner, which Magnus did not. But in another life, Lydia might’ve been a best friend who wasn’t a sister or a parabatai or a lover, and that was something Alec desperately needed.

It was also, upon reflection, the reason that Lydia asked Magnus to wait.

“Have some more tea,” he said when Lydia made as if to leave. “A conversation such as this can get quite taxing.”

She laughed, and helped herself to another piece of fudge; Magnus had already taken care of the empty teacup. “You and I should stay friends. No matter how the rest of it pans out.”

“Well,” Magnus said; he had his hand wrapped around his cup in a vulnerable gesture that was, now that it occurred to him, a silent mirroring of and salute to the brave and, yes, vulnerable young woman sitting across from him, “to paraphrase the poet, there’s certainly not enough of that to go ‘round.”

 


End file.
